


Spectroscopy (or, The Time of Two Doctors)

by nadshad



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: 3x10 OB spoilers, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mystery, but with more crazy science advetures, sort of a 3x10 fix-it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadshad/pseuds/nadshad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's said her goodbyes, she's tied up the loose ends, she's made what peace she can with all of this.<br/>This is the end -- and then the blue box appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spectroscopy (or, The Time of Two Doctors)

She had seen some extraordinary things in her rather unorthodox, paradigm-pushing life, but nothing quite like this. She had grown used to the exquisite technology rimming the walls and filling the rooms of the DYAD labyrinth, become accustomed to the fact that the equipment in those labs were crucibles for some of the most fantastical and fundamental developments science would ever see. She had seen CERN, the ITER, miracles of modern engineering. And, of course, she had seen human life created artificially and spent her entire career dealing with its consequences. It was fair to say it took a _lot_ to impress Delphine Cormier, at least where the science was concerned.

It seemed like she had finally met her match. This bizarre little contraption – no, not little, that was certainly the wrong word, though it _seemed_ so from the outside – bent every law of the physical sciences she had come across. True, physics wasn’t exactly her forte, but she’d be damned if her double bio-phys _licences_ didn’t at least prepare her to know what she was seeing now was not at all possible.  
  
“C’est…”

She always reverted back to French in overwhelming moments like this, but the peculiar man with the strange manner and the bowtie seemed to be utterly unsurprised; in fact, enthused – he animatedly responded in kind.

“ _Oui_ , c’est plus grand dedans. Well, that’s refreshing. It was getting a bit boring hearing the same thing in _English_. Quite a dull language, really. Always did prefer the romantics.”

Delphine barely registered anything the man was saying, stock-still and practically slack-jawed. The…room? Place? Vehicle? she had found herself in was _huge_ – certainly, as the man had said, far bigger inside than its tiny blue-box exterior. Silver, hexagon-plated walls that curved upwards into an impressive dome; the entire place was circular, with an upper level that hugged the walls, and a staircase leading down to the lower platform that coalesced at some kind of control board – or, what she supposed was a control board, what with so many kinds and shapes of buttons, levers, and screens it made her head spin – and surged to the ceiling in a transparent tube of florescent blue, pulsing lights.

Delphine’s mind flashed to the stacks of sci-fi novels lining the shelves of her childhood bedroom in France; this place may have well have sprung from their pages. _Scott would_ love _this._ A completely irrelevant thought, given the circumstance, but it was the first coherent one she managed.

“When you’re finished gaping, Doctor Cormier, we have places to be, things to do.” The man sounded…cheerful, almost childishly so. This was becoming increasingly more and more odd. Delphine felt the beginning of a headache coming on.

“Another doctor. Been a _while_ since I had another doctor on board. Always fun. Although it is a shame I have to share the title. Was never too good at sharing, really, are you?”

Delphine finally unfroze with a long, drawn-out sigh, resigning to this new bizarre turn. She had become rather practiced at it as of late, after all. A new, difficult, often ridiculous position; shock, confusion, denial, sometimes anger (there had been plenty of that lately); and then, eventually, the wave of resignation that nudged her forward regardless. Perhaps this little blue box and this little strange man defied physics and had found some way around the laws of the universe. Fine. Delphine’s full time job was, essentially, safeguarding human clones. Chacun ses goûts. Chacun ses fous.

“You are…a doctor?”

“ _The_ Doctor, actually.”

Delphine arched an eyebrow, her uncertainty dissipating at this suddenly familiar interaction: a man in a lab coat, just the same as her, pretending to be oh so much more proficient. She’d had her share. “Very modest, _Doctor_. Especially for a man wearing a bowtie.”

But The Doctor just grinned, not perturbed in the least. “Bowties are cool. And it really is a pleasure, Doctor Cormier. I’ve heard great things.”

“I cannot say the same.”

A slightly smug grin now, though it was tinged with a heavy, dark humor that had been absent before. “You must have been asking the wrong people.”

That almost got a smile out of her, despite herself. _Cheeky_.

Her throat tightened at the thought.

“You have a very impressive…place, Doctor, but really I’m not sure why you are here. You have no affiliation with DYAD, else we would have already met, and frankly I have something I need to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

On a normal day – any other day, really, she would never have let science like this slide so easily. No scientist, and certainly not Delphine, would stroll into some strange man’s world-defying, wormhole-like telephone box and walk back out again without even attempting to understand it. Not only that, but more fascinating than the science was this mysterious figure now fiddling with the levers and switches before him – the man who knew who she was and quite literally appeared out of thin air. But this was no ordinary day, this was her _last day_ , and she had been perhaps minutes away from some thoroughly unpleasant death. Now was not the time for a paradigm shift, for new mysteries, or an existential crisis. Now was the time to walk out and face the consequences for the choices she had made. For the people she had loved.

Delphine stepped towards the door.

“If you leave, Doctor Cormier, we both know you’re not going to make it to tomorrow.”

She turned on her heel, suddenly hyperaware. No longer was this man some quirky mad scientist with peculiar fashion sense who happened to know her title, perhaps with some quick search on DYAD. Now he knew something he _really shouldn’t_ , and knowledge was power, and in Delphine’s very visceral experience, power was danger, _every time_.

“Who are you?” A demand, crisp and cold, a voice she’d grown too used to using. “Are you with Topside?” A pause; her eyes widened; under her breath – “No. _Neolution.” –_ and she made straight for the door.

It swung shut before she could reach it.

It was one thing to kill her – that she had already come to terms with. But it was another thing entirely to own her, to keep her and use her against all she had worked for.

“You will not keep me here.” She did her best to keep her voice level. “I know what awaits me. I made my choice. Whoever you are – you have no right to change that, and I will not let you use me against LEDA.” Now, despite her efforts, it began to tremble, along with her hands pulling fruitlessly at the door. It had been too long a day. She had done too much. She had said her goodbyes, she had quashed too many thoughts already. No more, now. “I will die before—“

“ _Please_ , Doctor Cormier. Nobody dies. Not tonight. That’s sort of the point.”

Something boiling hot shot through her veins: the utter incredulity of it, the injustice of all of this, so far – and before she could decide to, she had The Doctor’s jacket lapels in her fists, forcing him back against the control board. “I ask you one more time. What is your connection to Neolution? _Who are you?”_

The Doctor did not resist, maintaining the diplomacy he had kept since the beginning, but something steely glinted in his eyes – she had the feeling he did not normally take so well to force like this. She became acutely aware of the razor blade still tucked into her boot, ready to use if necessary.

Still, when he spoke, his voice was gentle: “I am a friend, Delphine. Or at the very least an ally. You know as well as I do the danger you’re in. And to be very honest, I would not be _doing_ this, not anymore, because if there’s anything I’ve learned in the last few years of my unfathomably long life, it’s that no matter how many humans I try to save the more _chaos_ and sufferingthey find themselves in, and _believe me_ , I tried. But I made a promise to someone rather brilliant. I owe them this. And I am not a man who ignores his debts.”

Something had flared in him during his short speech: Delphine saw a frightening, hollow expanse in his conviction, in the intensity of his gaze. A tacit warning seemed to suffuse the air between them: that he had seen things even _she_ could not begin to wrap her mind around, unfathomably terrible and ineffably beautiful, and if she didn’t believe him now she might be yet another tragedy lost in the strange void behind his visage.

They stood in silence, her fingers still curled tightly around tweed. Around them, the room seemed to breathe, coiling and shuddering with every oscillation of the central pillar.

At last, she let go. The Doctor adjusted his jacket, standing as her equal once more.

“Forgive me, Doctor, but if you know this much you know I can’t take your word for any of this.”

This man seemed to have boundless energy. He immediately sprung back into enthusiasm, the darkness so evident just moments before discarded like yesterday’s bowtie. His hands clapped together in understanding – “Of course. So they said.”

 _Who are ‘they’?_ She really was up to it with these anonymous, vaguely threatening parties, but before she could ask The Doctor went on.

“I was told to give you this.” He pressed a small rectangular object into her palm.

The Doctor was saying something else, but Delphine wasn’t listening. The metal platform around her seemed to shudder, or maybe it was just her – fingers trembling, pulse thudding in her ears, the little thing in her hands at once _impossible_ and _of course_ and _yes, yes, thank_ God and _no, this was supposed to be the end –_

“What do you say?”

“What?” She responded weakly. Gone was the bravado, the last semblance of control she’d tried to enforce.

The Doctor spread his hands. “I said, whatever you prefer. I can’t keep you here – well, I _can_ , but that’s not quite my thing, you know.” The cheery smirk was back. “So if you still want to leave, you’re welcome to, and my dues are done. _Or …_ champagne?”

“Excuse me?”

“A good old bottle of champagne, and I have some explaining to do. A good long story to tell. Not really fond of long stories, but as I said, I do owe someone rather brilliant. And I hear rosé is your favorite." 

Delphine found herself nodding numbly before she could even think the offer through. There wasn’t really much deliberation to be had, really, not when The Doctor had just handed her _this_. An explanation was in order indeed. And…

And, maybe, just maybe, Delphine Cormier was not entirely as ready to die as she’d convinced herself earlier, not quite yet. If The Doctor had spoke any truth tonight, it had been that – _if you leave now..._

 _“_ Alright, Doctor. But if this champagne of yours turns out to be just sparkling wine, I’m afraid I really will have to go.” The humor in her voice was thin, barely managed, rusty after so long an absence. But the Doctor smiled regardless, wrenching a lever back with gusto and grinning even wider as the metal-plated room shook and shifted.

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it… _Doctor_.”

And as the scientist and the time lord drifted languidly above The Earth that night, clinking champagne flutes in the room hovering among the stars ( _the TARDIS, he would explain later, once the bottle was a little less full)_ , a Delphine Cormier still counted her footsteps in the parking lot far below, counted her seconds, lay down her bag—

“What will happen to her?” 

A shot.

**Author's Note:**

> So, neverloveawildthing16 on Tumblr made an interesting post about The Doctor paying Delphine a visit and taking her along as his companion, which prompted this - although this is a little more Orphan Black plot-centric than more whimsical Delphine-off-to-see-the-universe (but there may be some of that ahead, too!).


End file.
